


Last Thursday

by minnabird



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Episode: s09e12 Hell Bent, Gen, Missing Scene, Season/Series 09 Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-24
Packaged: 2018-05-08 22:30:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5515634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara knows what she has to do. But first, she allows herself one last Thursday to say goodbye.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <b>Major spoilers from Face the Raven on.</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Thursday

_Let me be brave_. Her last words, or what should have been her last words, played on repeat in her mind, like a mantra to get her through the next day.

“Are you sure about this?”

Ashildr stood in the doorway to the rest of the TARDIS, arms crossed. She tilted her head as Clara looked her way, a distinctly skeptical look in her eyes.

“Of course I’m sure,” Clara said. She tugged on her jacket to make sure it lay right, then turned to Ashildr. “How do I look?”

The other woman’s eyes flicked up and down, and she shrugged. “Does it matter?” she asked.

Clara sighed, aggrieved, and paced around the console of this strange, white TARDIS. “It’s my last day on the planet,” she said. “The last they’re ever gonna see of me. Doesn’t it?”

“I’m not the one to ask,” Ashildr said.

“But you are.” Clara turned to her, leaning back against the console. “You lived to the end of the universe. Billions of years. You must have seen so many people…I mean…”

Ashildr came forward, pacing around Clara as she looked her over. “You’ve seen your share of death,” she said. “From what I’ve read.”

“What you’ve read,” Clara said, disbelief in her voice.

“I looked you up, once you were around,” Ashildr said. “I kept the details in my diaries. Paternal grandfather quite young. Mother when you were…nineteen? Boyfriend not long before you must have met me.” She raised her eyes to Clara’s. “Do you remember what any of them were wearing their last day alive?”

Clara closed her eyes, her throat aching. She could picture it perfectly, for Danny, only because the scene on the street was so imprinted into her memory. “I take your point,” she said.

“You want to die well,” Ashildr said, reaching out to straighten her lapels. Clara opened her eyes, startled by the gesture, and saw a strange kindness in her face. “You look beautiful,” Ashildr said, eyes steady on Clara’s. “Go say your goodbyes.”

“There’s something an old favorite of mine wrote,” Clara said, tears in her eyes, though she didn’t let them fall. Seeing she had Ashildr’s attention, she went on, “Marcus Aurelius. Roman emperor, and my _biggest_ crush when I was fifteen. He said…” She could hear how her voice shook, and she forced it to steady. “‘The first rule,’” she said, “‘is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.’”

“Not bad rules to live by,” Ashildr said.

“Or to die by,” Clara replied, turning away. She dabbed away the tears that had escaped and took a deep breath, then started towards the TARDIS doors.

Outside, it was a typical Thursday morning. The sky was low and grey, and rain began to spit down gently as she hurried through the frowning gates of Coal Hill School.

She taught her classes as normal. She joked, and encouraged, and told silly stories about famous authors, some true, some not. When Clara Oswald left her classroom for the last time, she left an inscription on the whiteboard. There, in neat black letters, where she often wrote lines of famous poetry, were her last words to her students:

_“I thank whatever gods may be  
For my unconquerable soul.”_

_-William Ernest Henley_

Those weren’t bad words to die by, either, she thought, glancing back for a last look at the school. She only hoped she could keep living up to them.

Instead of taking the train to Blackpool, she said her own goodbyes to London: her flat, her favorite bookshop, the familiar haunts of her life there. She tried to stop in at the Maitlands’, but no one was home. With a heavy heart, she left the house where she’d spent such an earthshaking year behind.

The final stop in London was always going to be Danny’s grave. He wasn’t there, but his memory was. It was a small, dark stone marker with simple letters graven in. Clara knelt and brushed her fingers over a little hand-made bouquet of daisies at the foot of it, wondering who had left it. “Someone else will remember you,” she whispered to the grave. “I’m coming soon. I know you never wanted that, but that’s what’s happened. I made a mistake, Danny.” She took a deep breath, and it hurt, but she could not let herself cry yet. Instead, she kissed her fingers, then pressed them to the grave-marker, the wind whipping her hair across her face. Around her, the graveyard was desolate.

Finally, she went back to the TARDIS, and set it to land just around the corner from her gran’s house. It was easy enough to know what to do there, because her gran always had a stockpile of little things she needed help with around the house, from changing lightbulbs to checking the smoke detector. Clara did them all without complaining, then sat with a cup of tea and let her gran catch her up on the latest juicy twists from her soaps. Finally, she decided it was time to leave.

“I’ve got to visit Dad, too,” she explained as she fetched her coat, then leaned over to hug her gran. “Oh, I love you,” she said, holding on just a bit too long.

“I love you, too, dear,” her gran said, patting her shoulder. “You need to come home more often,” she added sternly, and Clara closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry.

“I will, Gran,” she said, and finally pulled away.

It was visiting her dad that scared her most, Clara thought as she walked through the streets of her hometown. It hadn’t occurred to her until she decided to say her goodbyes how much it would hurt him to lose her. Why hadn’t she factored that in, during all her reckless adventures? She knew she would never have lived her life otherwise, but not to even think about it seemed suddenly unforgivable. Things had always been complicated, but at the end of the day, it was just the two of them. Soon to be one.

“How do I face him?” she asked herself, looking up at his house from the pavement.

When he opened the door, Clara soaked in the sight of him: face creased with worry, hair greyed and receding. He’d aged so fast since her mother’s death. And the way he smiled, surprised, to see her… She followed him inside, hearing herself chatter brightly about how she thought she’d just pop up for a visit, no reason in particular.

She had just turned down a second cup of tea when her dad turned to her, leaning against his kitchen counter and looking her over. He cleared his throat. “How are you doing, with…?”

“With?” she asked, voice brittle. She felt like a deer in headlights. He couldn’t know; she needed to stop acting as if there was something wrong.

“With Danny,” he said.

“Oh.” Clara felt herself sag with relief, and she covered with, “Danny, yes. It’s…it’s not been easy, but I’m holding in there, you know.”

“You were always like your mother. Optimistic,” her dad said.

“No,” Clara said, coming over to lean on the counter next to her father. “I tried to be, but I wasn’t ever the same. It all came so easy to her.”

“It wasn’t always easy,” he said. “You know she lost her parents very young. It takes strength to look on the bright side when you’ve seen tragedy like that. It’s what I loved about her. She used to tell me that the only way to deal with death is to live.” He was silent a moment, eyes lowered.

“You are,” Clara said. “You’ve got Linda.” She’d never liked Linda, but she didn’t begrudge her father happiness.

“I have,” he said. “I wish I could tell you it gets easier with time, losing someone you love.”

Clara closed her eyes. Carrying that leaf with her for years, only to sacrifice it. Months of recklessness, half-wishing she could join Danny. Four and a half billion years of the Doctor picking away at a wall harder than diamond. Oh, she knew it didn’t get easier. “Dad…” Her voice choked off, and she scrambled for something to cover it, but suddenly she didn’t want to lie to him.

This day, this last Thursday on Earth, was only a day – by her father’s timeline – after her scheduled Wednesday adventure, nothing too hair-raising, just Clara and the Doctor in the TARDIS as usual. If Rigsy had never called, if she had never asked him to pass on the chronolock, then she would have come back to live this day like any normal day.

“Listen,” she said, turning to her father. “I know it’s going to sound insane, but I need you to know something. These past few years have been…amazing. I have saved hundreds of people’s lives. And I can’t tell you how, or why, or when…”

Her father caught her forearms, looking into her face with concern. “Clara…?”

“I met a man,” she said, aiming for 'reassuringly clear-headed.' “An alien. He offered to show me the stars, Dad, and he really did. See, he had this box. But it wasn’t just a box. It was a ship, and it could travel all of time and space, and it was all real. We’ve saved planets, and civilizations…And I need you to know, Dad. I’ve tried. I’ve tried so hard to be _good_. To do the right thing.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” he asked, thumbs smoothing over her wrists. She flinched back, before he could notice her lack of pulse. Judging by his expression, this only confirmed his fear that something was wrong.

“I’m trying to tell you that I’ve been keeping this from you,” she said, her voice coming faster. “And I’m not sure it was right. I’m also trying to tell you that I am living my life to the full. I have had everything I ever wanted and so much more.” Her vision was blurring and she felt a tear slide down her nose. “And I’m trying to tell you that I _love_ you. Dad. I love you.”

Her father reached out and drew her into his arms, and she buried her face in his shoulder. “Are you in some kind of trouble?” he asked, voice low.

“No,” she whispered, because it wasn’t fair to tell him that truth. She held on, silently battling with her tears, and her father rested his lips against the top of her head, not speaking a word. Finally, she was able to pull away, dabbing up the tears that had escaped. “Do you have anything on tonight?” she asked.

“Nothing I can’t put off,” he replied, smiling at her in a familiar, encouraging way. Just so had he smiled when comforting her over the small mistakes of her childhood: a test that hadn’t got the marks she’d wanted, a competition lost. There had been bigger upsets, ones that he had taken with less grace, fear for her making him angry. She had thought this would be one of _those_ times. In the end, they sat down to play a card game, an old ritual. It was only when he asked, casually, whether she had given that therapist a second thought that the realization blazed through her:

He didn’t believe her.

She laid down her cards, staring at him. “Do you think I’m having some kind of nervous breakdown?” she asked. Her voice had sharp edges in it that she hadn’t expected. He hemmed, examining his cards intently, and she said, “You _do_.” She stood, hands flat on the table. “I’m not joking and I’m not imagining things,” she said. “This is my life, and I need you to understand.”

She should have walked away, she thought. She should have finished the game of cards and let him go to bed still believing she was just a grief-riddled schoolteacher. But this was her last chance to say the things clawing at her throat.

“You’re happy to believe me when I lie to you,” she said, her voice quiet but no less dangerous. Her father finally looked up and carefully laid his own cards down.

“Now, you know that’s not true,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” she said. “As long as it makes things easier for you. I’m not talking about the times I lied to you when I got into trouble. I am adult enough to realize that I did that because I knew I was in the wrong. I’m talking about telling you that Nina was just a phase. She wasn’t, by the way. And yep, there it is. The retreating face.” She straightened, pointing accusingly at him. “You’d rather not have this conversation, because you don’t know how to react to it. Well, I’m sorry. That doesn’t make it less real. And maybe what I’ve learned is that you can’t avoid facing things forever.”

She sat down abruptly, putting her face into her shaking hands. She hadn’t talked about Nina – the girlfriend of a confused teenaged year, whom she had broken up with when her parents found out – in a very long time. This wasn’t even about Nina. It was about how little her dad knew her. After a few steadying breaths, she raised her eyes to his, still seeing the reluctance and discomfort there.

“I think it’s time you knew who I was,” she said, steel in her voice. She stood again, coming around the table to offer her hand to her father. “Do you trust me?” she asked.

He looked between her hand and her face, uncertainty rolling off him in waves.

“Dad. It’s _me_ ,” Clara said, softening her voice. “I promise nothing bad is going to happen.” _Yet,_ she added silently. “Please, take my hand.”

He stood, and she tilted her head back to keep her eyes on his face, which suddenly towered over hers. He looked down at her hand, thoughtful now, then clasped it. His hand was warm and a little sweaty, and she was struck by the strangeness of it. She hadn’t held his hand since she was a child. She didn’t release it, though, but led him to the door, where they stopped to put shoes on. Once outside, she took it again, then started off at a run, the tug of her hand urging him to keep up.

They came to a stop outside the TARDIS, which had camouflaged itself as a red Victorian postbox, and she told herself to think. There was no going back from this. _There’s no going back at all,_ she thought, and a half-hysterical laugh escaped her. “This is where I’ve been going all this time,” she said, turning to her father. “Well, sort of. You’ll see, anyway.”

“Through the letterbox?” her dad asked dubiously as she put her hand to the little door under the mail slot.

“Just a moment,” she said as the door opened. She pulled him into the opening, and it stretched impossibly around them, white light making them both blink.

“What…” her father gasped, looking around as his eyes adjusted. He stumbled forward a step, and she let him go.

Ashildr, standing at the console, moved forward, eyes narrowed. “Who is this?” she asked.

“My dad,” Clara said, waving frantically at her to be silent. She turned back to watch her father, now pacing around the edges of the room, staring as if he could understand what he was seeing if he looked hard enough. “Dad, I know it’s a lot,” she said. “But I had to show you it was true.”

As Clara went after her father, Ashildr caught her elbow. “I thought you were just saying goodbye,” she hissed.

“Change of plans,” Clara said. “He had to know.”

“No, he didn’t!” Ashildr replied, her grip tightening, pulling her so close that Clara could feel her breath on her ear. It was not a pleasant sensation. Clara suddenly remembered with blistering clarity that this was the woman who had placed the chronolock that was going to kill her.

“I know what I’m doing,” Clara said flatly. “Don’t forget that I’m the one who knows how to fly this thing.”

“I’ve got a manual,” Ashildr said coldly. “I can learn.”

Clara jerked away and went to her father, who seemed to have noticed their hushed conversation. He was now eyeing Ashildr with the same wariness he’d applied to this ship.

“I thought you said you were traveling with a man,” he said. “Is this why you brought…the thing with Nina…up?”

“No,” Clara snapped. “Call this a carpool.” She closed her eyes, reminding herself that she was doing all this because she loved her father. Ashildr was a problem with no solution, and that wasn’t going to change. “The man I travel with, he’s called the Doctor. You’ve met him, actually. The ‘boyfriend’ you met two Christmases ago.” She ignored Ashildr disdainfully mouthing the word _boyfriend_ in the background.

“The naked one?” her dad asked.

Clara pinched the bridge of her nose. She had forgotten what a disaster that Christmas dinner had been. “Yes. Exactly. The naked one. Who is not, incidentally, my boyfriend.”

“He’s an _alien_ ,” her dad said, then, unexpectedly, laughed. Noticing Clara’s startled expression, he said, “That explains a lot more than it doesn’t. So what is this, his spaceship?”

“Not his,” Clara said. “It’s a long story, and you don’t really need to know it. Basically, this is a spaceship… _aaand_ a time machine…” She tried to slip this one in casually as she started around the console, flicking a few controls. “And I can fly it, if I want to. How about a ride?”

“A ride. In your spaceship,” her dad said. Just when she thought he was closing off again, he said, “Sure, why not?”

“Really?” she said, grinning.

“Listen, you’ve dragged me into a postbox, which is bigger on the inside, told me you’re traveling with an alien in a time machine-slash-spaceship, and now you’re offering me a ride in it. This day can’t get any weirder.” He pointed at Ashildr. “Is she an alien, too?” he asked.

“No,” Ashildr said. “I’m just me, and that’s what you can call me. Clara, you’re not seriously going to do this, are you?”

“Why not?” Clara said.

Ashildr examined her nails. “I can cite at least five intergalactic laws stating why not, but as I suspect that’s going to go in one ear and out the other, I’ll just say this.” She pointed directly at Clara’s dad. “He is never going to be able to forget this. Do you really want him remembering _this_?” There was an extra layer of meaning in her words, Clara knew: _do you want this to be his last memory of you?_ This only hardened Clara’s resolve.

“Yes, I do,” Clara said. “Because this is who I am.” With that, she double-checked the coordinates, then flung a lever forward. The engines throbbed, making that familiar whooshing noise, and Clara grinned across the room at her father.

“This is my life,” she said, meeting his eyes.

* * *

“What now?” Ashildr asked, when Clara finally closed the door to the TARDIS.

It had been only a short trip in the end, a jump to a bazaar on the second moon of Pindari, then – purely an indulgence for Clara – a nip over to Jane Austen’s. Clara had taken great pleasure in letting slip that she happened to find Jane Austen hot, even greater pleasure in a flawless prank, and none at all in leaving without saying goodbye. But it was for the best. She didn’t have so many things to say to Jane; all they were was a playful flirtation and a wistful _what-if?_ A note, slipped into Jane’s papers, was enough. Saying goodbye to her father had been harder.

Now he knew most of her truths – the important ones, anyway – and she had seen him laugh with joy at strange skies and boggle at the reality of his daughter and Jane Austen flirting. She had told him a short version of the real story of how Danny had died, once they were back on the TARDIS. Clara had said all she needed to say, the things that had built up inside her over the years.

She could barely remember the echoes of herself, but there had been many Claras long before she jumped into the Doctor’s timestream. She had created so many versions of herself that it made her head go round. Only now, she thought, was she starting to find the real Clara at the center of it all. She had shared some of that self with her father tonight.

“Don’t retcon him,” she said quietly, wiping her tears away. “And get out the manual. I have a plan to get the Doctor’s TARDIS back to him.”

Clara had said all of her goodbyes but one. That one, she thought, might be the most difficult of all. And after that, she knew what she had to do. She had looked death in the face and known it for what it was.

_I don't want to go,_ she thought. But then again, did anyone?

**Author's Note:**

> This was born out of a weird night of missing my own dad and having just finished the series and missing Clara. I thought Clara's dad deserved some sort of closure, and then it turned into Clara getting closure in general. Hope you enjoyed (though I'm not sure that's the word).


End file.
